The High Ground (25 page)

“The thing about Hajin is they have a complex nervous system. You’ve heard about how a headless chicken can still keep running?” Ernesto said. “Well Hajin are like that too. Their bodies have been known to stay upright and move even with the brain destroyed.”

“Surely they can’t fight like that?”

“No, but they can slam into you and maybe knock you down. The males are big, bigger than humans, and mass a lot more weight.”

“But our soldiers are in armor so just getting knocked down—”

“Quite right that the knockdown isn’t all that serious, but while you’re down another enemy soldier might be able to shoot you.”

Mercedes studied the man’s sharply planed face, noted the genuine excitement and enjoyment as he discussed these finer points of alien physiology.

“You really love this,” she said.

“I do. I want to focus on xeno biology. Of course I can only do so much because of the genetic laws, but what I’d give to study with the Cara’ot…” He forestalled the objection he saw rising to her lips. “Of course I know that can never happen and I accept it, but it just seems a shame. They know so much about genetic engineering and nano tech.” He shook his head. “I wonder if it wouldn’t be smarter to delve into their secrets. By blinkering ourselves we might be unable to see a Cara’ot threat heading our way.”

They moved on to the Sidone corpse. Ernesto grinned at her. “So, you seem to be doing better with this.”

“It’s a giant bug. It’s harder to be emotional,” Mercedes replied. “And I’ve been served by Hajin and Isanjo my entire life.” She wasn’t exactly sure what she meant with the final sentence. That they seemed more real to her? That she would find it hard to kill one? Which raised a new question.

“I wonder where they get the bodies—”

Westfield’s voice came from behind her. “Morgues and executed prisoners. No, Cadet Princess, we didn’t go out and just randomly kill some aliens.”

“We formally declare war for that,” Arturo quipped. He seemed to have recovered his equilibrium, and was busily slicing into the Sidone.

Was it only her discomfort with this entire exercise that had her thinking he seemed gleeful?

“There hasn’t been a real war for over two hundred years,” Mercedes said. “I intend to keep it that way.”

“And we hope you succeed in that goal, Cadet Princess,” Westfield said.

“War is terrible for the economy,” Arturo said. “So I second.”

“It’s also not terribly healthy for children and other living things,” Westfield added dryly.

There was something in his delivery that made Mercedes think it might be a quote. One she decided she wanted to find and maybe pin on her wall.

* * *

Tracy found that his O-Trell ID did not give him access to ship’s logs or the actual locations of those ships when they weren’t docked. It also didn’t give him access to the command centers for
Estrella Avanzada
Epsilon on the edge of sector 470. But it did give him access to manifests, requisition orders and maintenance logs for the star base, which was what he really wanted and needed based on his cryptic conversation with Rohan Aubrey, the Conde de Vargas.

He was glad to have this new task because it kept him from thinking about how he had failed Mercedes in biology. Sure he’d brought her the trashcan, but it was Ernesto who had been of real help to her. Why hadn’t he offered to help? Had he taken Cullen’s contempt to heart? Had the duque’s son’s threats truly cowed him, and made him scared to talk with Mercedes even in a school setting?

Thinking about Cullen made Tracy think about the duel, and the hollow feeling hit his gut again. A hard shake of the head did little to dislodge the fear and the regret.

Concentrate
, he ordered his troubled and rebellious mind. He once again bent to his task.

The Epsilon outpost was the League’s most distant base—out on the Scutum-Centaurus arm. The
Avanzada
was almost the width of the galaxy away from Ouranos, which orbited a sun in the Perseus arm. After an hour and a half an interesting pattern emerged. Ships that were listed in repair manifests would suddenly never be mentioned again. On requisition orders parts were designated for repairs on specific ships. Those orders also stopped when the ships stopped being listed in the garage.

Five ships, small, fast, lightly armed
explorador
ships carrying a complement of two hundred and twenty-five men, had vanished from the records. They were the
Mercury
, the
Ave Rapaz
, the
Challenger
, the
Restive
and the
Desafiante
. The first stopped being mentioned three years before. The most recent, the
Ave Rapaz
, vanished from the records back in May.

Curious now, Tracy looked to see if the scout ships had been repaired in any garage at the other twenty-three
Avanzadas
. They hadn’t. He tried shipyards in orbit around various League worlds. Nothing. He even tried the third-rate facilities in orbit around Earth, that sad overheated and storm-racked planet where only a few End of Timers and hopeless romantics still chose to live. No mention of the ships. A dull ache settled in Tracy’s temples.

So the physical ships had seemingly vanished. What about the humans who crewed them? Pay manifests proved to be impossible to access. Tracy leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin, his hand rasping on stubble, and contemplated how to get the information. An idea occurred to him and he leaned back over his tap-pad. The League might not allow a junior (almost) officer to access actual coordinates of the myriad ships in the fleet, but security wasn’t all that tight in other areas.

He checked sales receipts at the various bars, restaurants, shops and brothels on Epsilon when a ship docked and calculated the resulting increase in revenue correlated to the number of crew that would have been assigned to that ship, and that information also gave him the rotation schedule of the ships returning for resupply. He could trace the drop in revenue when any of the five ships stopped returning. Which meant their crew hadn’t been reassigned to the outpost.

The data seemed to indicate that five ships and their crews had simply vanished. If that had happened why had there been no press? Usually if a League ship was lost it was front-page news. Tracy leaned back in his chair and rubbed the top of his head as if trying to push out the headache that gripped him. Maybe he had just missed the coverage. Prior to his graduation Tracy had paid little to no attention to fleet news. Tension quivered along his nerves as he bent over his tap-pad and searched the news sites. He hadn’t missed anything because there was nothing. Over a thousand men had disappeared and there had been no outcry from anyone. Apparently not even their families.

Just how far would the conde wish him to go? Cowardice and curiosity warred for primacy. Curiosity won. He had managed to access names on credit spike accounts at various bars on Epsilon. He picked the name of a low level enlisted
estrella hombre
, and located his planetside address on Kronos. Discovered he was married with six kids. He created an email address that looked like it might come from the bank, and sent a query to Señora Patricia Denning regarding her husband’s pay. It would take a while for the message to bounce through the Foldstream and reach her, and some time for her answer to return.

Tracy set aside the puzzle of the five missing
exploradors
, and turned to his homework assignments. The door chime sounded. It was Hugo and Sumiko.

“Come on,” the man said, “Jasper says he’s got time for you now and the Sabers studio is empty.”

“Let me change,” Tracy said. He grabbed his gym clothes, and went into the bathroom. “I hope he’s bringing swords,” Tracy grumbled as he rejoined them.

“I think you can take that as a given,” Sumiko said. “He strikes me as a man who has a lot of swords in his collection.” Hugo made a snorting sound. Tracy tried really hard to control his features and bet that he looked like a stuffed dummy. “What?” She thought for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Oh God, you just made something dirty out of that, didn’t you? Of course you did. Boys!” She spun on her heel and marched out the door.

The Sabers fencing society had a gym just for their own use. Apparently the Black Feathers had one as well. The High Ground took its dueling seriously, Tracy thought as he looked at Jasper standing cool and elegant in his fencing gear, a mask under one arm, saber hanging negligently from his good hand. His broken arm was in a sling, a slash of black against his padded jacket. He wore tight white breeches, white socks, and soft white shoes.

“Get a jacket and mask from the rack.”

Tracy did as he was told. “Do I get to wear this padded thing when I fight Cullen?” he asked as he pressed the velcro on the jacket closed.

“Of course not. Shirt sleeves,” was Talion’s impatient reply. “And you won’t wear the mask either.”

Seeing the world through the mesh of the mask was disorienting. Tracy tried to focus as Talion held out a sword. “This is a saber. Be careful, the edge is sharp,” he warned as Tracy reached for the weapon.

“All the better to cut you with,” Tracy muttered.

“Exactly,” was the comfortless reply. “We don’t use épées for affairs of honor. They’re a stabbing weapon and there’s too great a chance of death. The saber is a slashing weapon.”

“How else do you get a sexy scar,” Sumiko said in her acerbic way. Talion gave her a sharp look. Hugo chuckled and stared at her fondly.

Well that’s interesting
, Tracy thought, then jumped a bit when Talion hit him on the shoulder with the flat of the blade.

“Pay attention.”

“Sorry. I just can’t believe…”

“Well, it is happening so deal with it,” Talion said.

Tracy inspected the sword—
saber
, he corrected himself. It was far simpler than he’d expected given what he knew of the FFH. He had expected an embossed and jewel-laden hilt. Instead the guard was a simple round bowl of metal covered with crimson enamel, shielding an austere metal handle. Talion took hold of his saber, and demonstrated the proper grip. Tracy followed suit and realized the enamel bell protected his hand quite well. He peered down the length of the blade, and bounced the thing experimentally in his hand. He guessed it weighed around five hundred grams and was perhaps one hundred and five centimeters long. He had a feeling the weight wouldn’t feel all that negligible after a few minutes of trying to wave the damn thing around.

“The only really usable portion of the blade in terms of inflicting damage is the first thirty-three centimeters—from the point to about a third of the way down the blade. You can parry closer to the hilt—it’s the strongest part of the blade, and best suited to take the stress from a blow. The main thing you have to remember is don’t get your feet tangled. You do that, and it’s over. I don’t have time to teach you how to actually fence. I’m going to do my best to teach you how to defend yourself. It will work for a while, and might make Boho decide to just take the cut and get this thing over with. He won’t want to look like a fool by taking too long to draw first blood.”

“What happens if
I
draw first blood?” Tracy asked.

“Then you win, but that won’t happen,” Talion said bluntly. “You’re limited to the torso, the arms and the head. Legs are off limits so don’t go flailing away and accidentally hit him there. If you were to do that you’d get a beat down.”

“Because cutting me with an archaic weapon isn’t punishment enough,” Tracy muttered.

“Okay, the first thing that will happen is the seconds will inspect the blades to make sure no one is cheating by bringing in a longer or heavier weapon. Then the salute.” Talion demonstrated. He had been holding the saber at an angle pointed at the floor. He snapped it up to a vertical position, the blade in front of his face, and swept it down again. “After that you will return to the resting position until the handkerchief is dropped and Mihalis as the highest born will give the command to begin. He’ll say
allez
.”

Sumiko giggled. It wasn’t something anyone expected and they all looked at her. “Sorry, I just think it’s hysterical that you boys have established all this elaborate ritual to wrap around a basic desire to just whale on each other.”

Talion looked offended. Hugo and Tracy exchanged a meaningful glance, and Hugo patted Sumiko on the shoulder. “You’re probably right, but that doesn’t change the fact Tracy is about to get a whuppin’—”

“So we ought to get back to it,” the baron said sharply.

“Doesn’t Boho have to ask if Tracy will apologize?” Hugo asked. “I’ve been reading up on this,” he explained in answer to Sumiko and Talion’s surprised glances.

Tracy didn’t care and wasn’t impressed at Hugo’s diligence. He burst out, “Fuck no I won’t apologize. He hit
me
.”

Talion ignored his outburst and looked at his seconds. “He won’t in this case, because it’s Boho’s contention that Belmanor insulted a lady, and no apology is ever acceptable for that.”

“Good, because I’m not going to apologize,” Tracy said again. He almost added,
She asked me to dance
, but bit back the words deciding that such information getting out wouldn’t be good for Mercedes.

“All right then. Keep your weight evenly balanced on both feet and watch my eyes and the end of my blade. We’ll go slow to start.”

Talion’s blade wove back and forth. Tracy managed to catch about half of the hits, and he felt the shudder down the blade and into his arm. As he anticipated, about five minutes in the saber became a dragging weight, and his muscles began to cramp. He also knew that Talion was moving very slowly.

They took a brief break then started again, and this time the pace of the blows increased and Talion advanced on him with quick sliding steps. Tracy tried to hold in place, but was knocked to the ground. Talion reached down and pulled Tracy back to his feet.

“When I advance you have to retreat. Keep me at sword’s length. That’s when you have to be careful and not trip yourself.”